A portable hard drive is the best option out there when it comes to offloading files from a smartphone, laptop or camera SD cards. But when it comes to accessing those files again, user has to go through the conventional process of connect the device to the drive with a USB cable.

A wireless hard drive can address that by allowing users to directly stream or transfer any file on multiple devices without involving cables. Western Digital’s new My Passport Wireless Pro, priced at Rs18,500 (2TB), is the new wireless drive in town. The 1TB variant costs Rs11,000.

It is the successor to the My Passport Wireless, launched in 2014, and brings a bigger battery, advanced wireless networks and more flexibility for users.

The side panel includes physical buttons for switching the power and the wireless network on/off, SD card slot and the USB ports.

Here are some of the key elements you should consider:

■ My Passport Pro has a flat box shaped body with a hard plastic chassis that feels sturdy. It looks bigger than the predecessor but doesn’t feel hefty. The 2TB variant, we got, weighs just 454g. It comes with LED indicators which light up to tell how much battery is left, when the device is switched on and the Wireless network is active.

■ It offers 2TB of HDD, which is more than adequate for high resolution images and 4K videos. Then there is a massive 6,400mAh battery, which makes the device truly portable and provides enough juice to last up to 8 hours on a single charge. You can also use the battery to charge a smartphone.

■ The USP of the Wireless Pro is that it allows users to transfer files from a laptop or smartphone wirelessly. It supports the advanced 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard, compared to predecessor which only supported the 802.11n standard.

■ This allows users to stream and watch 4K videos directly from the drive without having to transfer them to a PC or smartphone, first. Streaming photos and HD videos at 5GHz band went smoothly and interruption free.

■ Another highlight of the drive is that it supports both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. Users in other rooms can take advantage of the former band as it has a higher range, but at the cost of bandwidth speed. For better bandwidth speed there is the 5GHz band.

■ The inbuilt card reader will make transferring files from cameras to the hard drive a lot easier. Users won’t have to transfer them to PC then to the drive.

■ When used as regular storage drive, it can move large files very quickly. It offers writing speed of up to 800Mb/s when transferring files from a laptop over USB 3.0. When moving photos from SD card it offers speed of up to 104MB/s. Over the wireless networks it provides speed of up to 433Mb/s.

■ Setting up the drive and connecting it to a smartphone or PC wirelessly is a breeze. It doesn’t require internet connection but creates its own wireless network. Smartphone users can access the files on it through WD My Cloud app (free; Android, iOS) while Windows 10 and Mac OS X users need install the Access and Backup app from the drive.